As soon as the film started Ann and I both wondered out loud: did the soundtracks of movies made in the late 1940’s all sound the same to people back then, or are we anthropomorphizing? The film gets right down to business shooting Rita Hayworth in soft light, and that’s about all it ever does. The film-noir cinematography a’la Orson Welles is great throughout, but there’s no great story or performances to go with it. At least Touch of Evil had Marlene Dietrich with her scathing gaze. I wonder if I’d like Welles better when he’s not in the director’s chair, maybe in The Third Man? Or maybe it’s time to move on…
2 responses to “Movie: The Lady from Shanghai”
How does the music anthropmorphize (assign human characteristics or behavior to animals)?
Ah! I meant ethnocentricizing, of course. But it would be nice if the word indicated the cultural change with respect to time instead of place – maybe it’s chronocentricism that we’re guilty of!